Civil activist: security grip restricts revolutionary work in Syria’s Salamiyah
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Jawad Haidar (a pseudonym), a civil activist from the city of Salamiyah in the Hama countryside in central Syria, said on Tuesday that the arrests of activists in Syria have not stopped over the last ten years, the latest round of which was during the 2020 protests in Suwayda.
In a few days, the Syrian war will arrive at its first decade, and many Syrian provinces, cities, and towns took the form of a peaceful civil movement at the beginning of the war.
Haidar told North Press, “As the tenth anniversary of the Syrian revolution approaches, its people stress the continuity of the approach and to not abandon it until the achievement of its goals of freedom, justice, citizenship, and the overthrow of the regime.”
He pointed out that in 2020, activists in Salamiyah removed the regime’s images and symbols from the city’s streets, and its emphasized the continuity of the revolution in the city as they raised the flag of the Syrian revolution in the middle of it near the government palace building.”
After that, Syrian government forces launched a massive campaign of arrests, affecting many dissidents and activists. “Today, the city suffers from the decline of revolutionary action due to the tight security grip,” Haidar said.
The work of the activists is limited to relief activity for the remaining displaced people from the villages and the neighboring countryside who reside within the city.
The number of those who evaded compulsory service in Salamiyah in 2015 reached about 25,000, so the regime began terrorizing the city to put pressure on its people, as the Revolutionary Guards-backed groups committed a massacre in the village of Mabouga.
Dozens of civilians were killed and kidnapped in this massacre, and the fates of many remain unknown. Security pressure and arrest campaigns resulted in mass emigration by activists and the city’s youth, the pace of which increased in 2015 and 2016, according to Haidar.
In 2017, Syrian government forces bombarded the city with rockets as the remaining residents refused to join the government forces, resulting in dozens of dead and wounded.
He added, “In the same year, the regime deliberately committed another massacre in the village of Aqrab, affiliated with Salamiyah, after withdrawing many of its checkpoints and advanced military points.”
“The regime, as usual accused the al-Nusra Front, ISIS, and others of committing the massacre,” Haidar said.
The civil activist pointed out that “the arrests of activists have not stopped over the past ten years, the latest of which was on the occasion of the movement of the city of Suwayda in 2020, when the free people in the city of Salamiyah distributed leaflets directed against the regime and in support of the revolutionary movement in Suwayda.”
Last July, Suwayda witnessed popular demonstrations calling for the “overthrow of the regime, the departure of Assad, the release of detainees, and the exit of foreign powers from the country.”